After The Storm
by ifonly13
Summary: Kate Beckett struggles with her emotions after telling Castle they are through being partners.


_I don't own any part of _Castle_; that honor goes to Andrew W. Marlowe._

**My take on how Beckett handles her emotions after telling Castle they are done being partners during the season finale fight in her apartment.**

The door slammed behind him, the sound reverberating through the apartment. Afterwards, the silence was deafening. Not even the sounds of traffic, so common in the city even at the late hour, were entering the sanctuary. She turned, looked at the door and hoped that it would open so she could apologize for the words.

Sitting on the arm of the couch, the cushions in the middle were strewn with folders and papers, Kate ran a hand through her hair. Looking around the living room, she saw what her life had become. She was surrounded by death. The case that had haunted her for the past nine years, the one she had managed to box up and walk away from, had spilled out. It covered her couch, the coffee table, the kitchen island, the walls, and the windows.

She blamed him. It was irrational, but she needed someone to accuse and he was available. If he hadn't shown up, dug into that neatly ordered box, and tossed it back in front of her, none of this would have happened. He had apologized before, but it was as if he had given the world's best whiskey to a recovering alcoholic; she had taken the shred of information he had uncovered and run with it.

Frustrated, exhausted, and angry, Kate picked up the pad of paper she was using to write notes on. The words there didn't make sense, her eyes re-arranging the letters from fatigue. She threw the paper across the room, watching it hit her favorite painting and fall to the ground. For a minute, she stood there, looking at the pad as it lay on the ground.

Giving in, she locked the apartment and changed into leggings and a worn-out shirt from a NYPD benefit race she had run years ago. Once in bed, the cool sheets pulled up around her, she still couldn't sleep. Her mind was racing back twelve years, playing the entire case out from the beginning. She remembered opening the front door to the sturdy detective, recalled trying to comfort her father even as she broke apart inside. There were late nights of studying during the police academy where the only thing keeping her awake was the knowledge that once she had a badge of her own, she could dig deeper into the case. She remembered graduating in Madison Square Garden, searching her father's face out from the crowds of people in the stands. The nerves as she walked into the Twelfth for the first time, where Detective Michael Royce had gathered her under his wing and taught her how to build a solid case and keep her sanity at the same time. Three years in, she had finally been able to walk away from the single case that had carried her to that point. She found other things to make the job worthwhile, other people to bring justice to.

All until that day that someone had placed roses on a body and sunflowers on the girl's eyes. Until she had driven to the pier where Richard Castle was holding his book release party and found him at the bar, Sharpie at the ready. Rolling over, wiping an errant tear from her cheek, Kate wished she could regret being the one catching cases that day. His charm and the fact that his books had gotten her through some of the worst moments of her life had allowed him to weasel his way into her life. She'd set the boundaries early, drawing a hard line between him and her mother's case. But he had to dig, to prod, to find that one detail that changed everything. And she hated him for it, for opening Pandora's box.

Last summer had been one of her worst. Heat made people do crazy things and murder rates always skyrocketed during those hot months. While other detectives shut their cases and went home to sleep for the night, Kate went home, drank another cup of coffee, and stared at her make-shift murder board. By August, the facts had engrained themselves into her brain. And still, the phone hadn't rung with his caller ID. That tiny part of her that still despised him joined fate in a laugh. She'd finally summoned up the courage to put her feelings out there and Ex-Wife Number Two waltzed into her bullpen, making him grin and wrap his arms around the petite blonde woman. _Good_, she thought, staring at the ceiling, _he deserved to be happy. He certainly looked happy leaving the precinct that day_.

She lay there for hours, playing moments over in her head. Times when she had been stuck in a case that was taking her twice as long to solve without him there that she had battled between calling him or leaving him alone on vacation. Those few mornings she would forget to stop for coffee and wait for him to stroll in with an extra one as if he knew she had driven past the coffee shop on her way in. The CIA conspiracy theories that made her roll her eyes but secretly smile. Those hours spent in a freezing storage container, shivering in his arms, on the brink of using her last breath to admit that they had become more than partners, that she wanted to be more than partners with him.

And tonight, with three words, she had destroyed any chance they had of ever working together again. Three words said in resentment and too few hours of sleep.

Sitting up, the sun beginning to peak its first rays over the skyline, she grabbed her cell phone from the bedside table. Her finger rested on the 2, his speed dial. Her thumb moved over it, never giving it enough pressure to actually call him. With a sigh, she set the phone back on its charger.

There was too much running around in her head. If she wasn't thinking about her mother's case, she was thinking about him. She supposed, from those few psych classes she had taken, that the fact she put them on the same level was significant, but she didn't want to entertain that thought right now. There was only one thing that would stop her from thinking.

Just as the sun fully illuminated the New York City skyline, Kate pulled on shorts and a tank, laced up her shoes, and headed out for Central Park. It was a long run just to reach the center of the city from the East Village, but the crisp morning air was a welcome slap in the face. For the hour, she put her brain on silent and just focused on the path in front of her. She knew the path by heart, knew that when she reached that bridge, the couple that ran around the same time would cross her path. She knew when the mounted patrol that went out early to look for drunks would wave to her. Here, she knew where she stood.

Back in the apartment, after a shower that could have scalded the skin right off her bones, she was unsure. Rather than sit and brood, she dressed and drove to the station. It was still early for the day shift to be in and the fourth floor was quiet. The only light was shining from Captain Montgomery's office. She dropped her bag on her chair before knocking on his door. She probably could have gone right in – she and the Captain had a special relationship that had started early on in her time at the Twelfth – but she didn't want to interrupt something. He glanced up and gave a two-finger beckon that she could enter.

Kate had thought about what she was going to do, to say, on the ride uptown. The words came out easily after the minutes of rehearsal she had gone through in the car.

"Roy, I am over it, I mean it. I want him gone."


End file.
